Irrational numbers in nature

if I have a 1 meter long stick and I break it at a random point, can the length of the new stick be irrational? I'm not talking about a theoretical platonic stick - I'm talking about a real stick.
I.E - can you find "real" irrational numbers in nature, and not just in abstract math? or does any attempt to get close to them will only end up in some rational result? and is the answer different for transcendental numbers and algebraic irrationals?
give me your thoughts.

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I don't really accept the "there's no such thing as numbers" attitude. Natural numbers definitely exist - you can count 1 electron, 2 electrons etc.
you can also decide that from now on, 10 electrons stacked in a row = 1 meter, and then you automatically have rationals - 5 electrons = half a meter.
but once you try to find a natural "definer" for the real numbers, things start to get a bit messy. you can't define pi using a circle because perfect circles can't be formed with the already defined naturals and rationals, so what can you do?
hope this clear up a bit of what I meant when I started the thread.

Algebraic numbers are less spooky than transcendental numbers.

If you can write down a finite recipe for the number, what is the big deal?

A summation might have infinitely many terms, but you usually have a formula mapping the naturals to the terms of your series. All of the information about the infinite series is contained in the formula for mapping the naturals to the terms of the series.

The transcendentals for which there is no finite recipe are the real mystery. Their existence seems to depend on the axiom of choice or some variant of Cantor's diagonal argument.

place your meter stick vertical (via plumb-bob)
at a random time during daylight hours that are
not overcast nor cloudy, at a random latitude
on a random day of the year, and the length of its shadow
will be an irrational number with probability one

This is not a mathematical question but a physical one. The answer depends on the nature of space. Either space is continuous, or it is discreet. If space is discreet, it basically means that there are "pixels" of reality, and therefore that irrational numbers can't exist when it comes to lengths. But if space is continuous, I see nothing that prevents lengths from being irrational numbers.

Whether space is continuous or discreet in nature is an unsolved question right now. There currently are several concurrent hypotheses trying to answer it, such as loop quantum gravity and string theory.

By the way, even if space is continuous, one could argue that all actually useful physical lengths are divisible by Planck's length. So no, your stick cannot have an irrational length. But saying this doesn't mean that irrational numbers are a pure abstraction and have no physical reality.

>counting electrons
you dun goofed quantum mechanics denying motherfucker
should have picked a better example

No, they don't exist in nature, and neither do naturals

Define length

Wow... just...

Any stick of any length can be irrational if the number system of the metric is chosen properly.

Take a square sheet. Cut it diagonally. The length of the diagonal is irrational if the metric f the square is created in a rational number system..

Math is a story. The story either works for what you are using it for or it stops. Stories are made with stories that determine what stories you can make, but they are all stories.

Turtles all the way down.

You are just confusing your stories and you think it is okay because you have a story of Platonism that says there is a reality that is one way, so you make more stories trying to connect all your stories into one story.

If you continue on this path, you will never understand math. Math is the rhetorical story of many stories that can be used for many things depending on what stories you accept that make up the stories.
The conclusion picks the givens which then lead to the conclusion, excluding other givens.

Stop trying to fit irrational square pegs into ration round holes.

I think you didn't really get the question. If everything is made of atoms, circles, squares, triangles and diagonals don't exist. Therefore, it seems sensible to wonder whether irrational numbers manifest in the material world or not.

Are you high?

That's a story too.
Stories all the way down....

"I don't understand things that are new to me so I mock!"


...sigh

>using "..." instead of greentext
Seems like you don't understand things new to you, namely Veeky Forums.

cite your quotation

Why would I?

Space is obviously not discreet. It keeps fucking with us in pretty dramatic ways.

I want to know who you were quoting.

>¿Am I being trolled?

Just redefine the meter to be sqrt(2) meters instead?

Wherever you break the stick there will be units of measurement where the length is rational, and units of measurement where the length is irrational.

There are no such thing as rational quantities in the real world.
The only way you can get anything besides an irrational scalar quantity is by counting objects (to get integer quantities).
>i took the bait

The thing I can't wrap my head around is rational numbers, how can two things in nature be in a perfect rational proportion to each other?

But I guess if you really want to nitpick, at the smallest level distances become a bit funny, so maybe there is no real answer.